


Fierce Defiance, Unsubdued

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4141791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I broke the rules and I accept the consequences.  But you can lash me a hundred times and I am still gonna do whatever it takes to find those kids. </i>My<i> kid.  </i></p>
<p>Defiance has always been her default reaction to adversity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fierce Defiance, Unsubdued

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Abby Griffin Appreciation Week. Day 1: the moment you fell in love with Abby. 
> 
> Abby's POV for the shocklash scene from 2x03. I wouldn't say it's any more violent than the scene in the episode, but you know... Shocklashing.

“We don’t have to do this down here.” 

Abby feels Major Byrne rip open the back of her shirt.  The cool breeze touches the bare skin of her lower back and she feels a brief flare of anger at the damage inflicted on one of her only pieces of clothing. 

(It’s only a shirt, but it’s not like she has time to repair it, in between treating the wounded and being punished for caring about the kids.) 

Her final appeal to Marcus’s better judgment fails.  She thought that the ground had changed him, but perhaps she was wrong. 

(That’s not fair, and she knows it, but she’s not about to be kind to the man who chooses to punish her.) 

The wind carries the uneasy murmurs of the crowd to her ears.  Is this really what they’ve come to?  Stocks in the town square?  At least when they floated people on the Ark the only non-officials present were immediate family or friends. 

(But that’s the point, isn’t it?  The spectacle.  The deterrent.  Everybody needs to see that even Abigail Griffin is not above the law.) 

The straps around her wrists are relatively loose.  She knows the effect of a shocklash baton on a human body.  It’s going to hurt like Hell and it’s not going to be dignified.  She looks to her right just in time to witness the spark and hum as Byrne activates her baton.  She looks away again, twisting her hands to grip the straps tightly as she steels herself for the first lash. 

She’s torn.  She doesn’t want to show weakness, but she wants him to know how much this hurts.  She wants Marcus Kane to know how much _he_ is hurting her.  Unlike on the Ark, she thinks it actually matters to him now. 

Defiance has always been her default response to adversity.  Her mother used to say that the best way to get Abby to do something was to tell her that she couldn't. She always searched for another option, even when those around her proclaimed that there was no choice. She was defiant when Jake told her that the Ark was dying.  She was defiant when the Council voted to empty the Sky Box.  She was defiant when Marcus tried to float her. 

This will be no different. 

She looks him in the eye as she waits for the punishment. 

She is not afraid. 

(The heaviness in her stomach claims otherwise.) 

She can take the pain. 

“Proceed.” 

The first shock lances against her skin to the left of her spine, sharp and hot, like a thousand heated needles being hammered into her body.  Her head jerks back as her body convulses and her feet skid against the ground.  Her deathly grip on the straps keeps her upright but she can’t stop herself from crying out.  She’d hoped not to scream, but her body betrays her.  It’s a natural reaction, an instinct that she can’t control. 

(She prays that she can keep control of her bladder.  She can cope with physical trauma but that humiliation would be too much.) 

The wind whips her hair across her face as she lifts her eyes back to his.   

Defiance.

It’s all she has now. 

“Again.” 

The second shock lands higher than first, a newer, sharper, hotter pain to accompany the residual burning from the first lash.  She cries out as her body convulses again.  Then she slumps, hanging from the straps for a brief moment as she tries to catch her breath.   

When she drags her eyes back to his she can tell that she’s succeeding.  Her pain is hurting him.  She feels a strange combination of satisfaction and sadness.   

(She understands why he’s doing this, but damn him for not finding another way.  His hand isn’t forced down here, not like it was on the Ark, no matter what Byrne has been whispering in his ear.) 

She uses her grip on the straps to pull herself back to an upright position.  She concentrates on conveying her pain and her defiance straight into Marcus’s sorrowful eyes. 

“Again.” 

She thinks his voice quivers, but it might be her imagination or a trick of the wind. 

The third shock is the worst so far.  Her cries are more like screams now, and her feet slip from under her as her fingers lose their grip on the straps completely.  She hangs from the straps by her wrists, head bowed, panting from pain. 

“Again.” 

She forces her fingers back around the straps.  She doesn’t have the strength to pull herself upright again but she manages to lift her head just enough to hold eye contact with Marcus as she awaits the next shock. 

When it comes she lets out a louder scream of pain. 

She loses count somewhere around the sixth shock.  She’s no longer aware of the distressed noises from the crowd, or the whispering of the wind, or the heat of the sun on her body.  Her focus has narrowed to the burning in her back and the ache in her throat, the tightness in her chest and the weakness in her entire body. 

Her arms are numb. She doesn't have the strength to pull herself upright. Between each lash she just hangs, suspended from the straps, head bowed to the ground until the next shock of electricity forces her back to contort and her face to tip up towards the sky. 

She can't see Marcus any more, but she doesn't think it matters. She knows that he's still there, still initiating each fresh bout of pain with a single word. He's made his point, but so has she. There are no winners here. 

She doesn’t realise that it’s over until Jackson appears before her, his face damp as he lifts her head with gentle hands.  He checks her vitals quickly, but her nerves are on fire and even his soft touch makes her groan. 

“Sorry, Abby.”  He supports her weight as she feels her wrists being released from the straps. 

As the cloud of agony dissipates slightly she realises that the crowd has dispersed, now that the spectacle is over.  She wonders if Marcus’s plan has worked.  She'd ask him, if she could find her voice. She looks up at the place where he stood overseeing her punishment, but he's disappeared with the crowd. It's Byrne who supervises Abby's release from the stocks, the deactivated shocklash baton back in place on her belt. 

Abby doesn’t care.  She leans heavily on Jackson’s arm as he leads her to the medical tent.  Every step sends another flare of burning pain across her lower back, but at least she’s conscious and walking.  Being unconscious and face down on a cot in medical sounds quite inviting right now, but she has work to do. 

The public shocklashing might have succeeded in cowing the camp into submission.  It might have succeeded in enforcing the Exodus Charter.  It might even have succeeded in showing that nobody in Camp Jaha is above the law. 

Yet it’s done nothing to deter Abby.  Her defiance has only grown in the face of her punishment. She's prepared to break every damn law in Byrne's precious Exodus Charter if it'll bring Clarke back.

Nothing Marcus Kane can say or do is going to stop her from finding her kid. 

**End**


End file.
